There is a current movement among audio producers, electronic musicians, and the like. People are finding ways to blend organic audio matter with digital trickery, and the results are often very interesting. In this episode (and the next) we will look at a few ways that electronic musicians are going organic.
Pretty Lights recently has been booking studio time, bringing in musicians (horn sections, guitar, etc) treating them like a virtual instrument by asking them to play certain phrases. This while recording them to analog tape, then onto acetate (vinyl), and finally he transfers the samples into his Ableton environment. (http://www.seattletimes.com/entertainment/pretty-lights-gets-deep-on-all-original-new-album/).
But this new practice of Found Sounds takes it a step further. Imagine stepping out into the world, in the city, suburbs, on a goat farm, etc. and recording with your handheld recorder sounds gathered from the physical world. You can bang on a dumpster, you can crush a discarded Dr. Pepper can, throw a rock into a pond, close the tailgate of an old pickup…. record these and more sound sources and import them into your computer editing/production software and try to make something rhythmic and musical out of it.
Ordinary objects can sometimes sound extraordinary! For fun, I took some samples of a bike, and created a couple of simple one bar drum patterns.
Here are some kitchen sounds, made in to a beat.
Diego Stocco, a hero of ours, has been known to record very cool beats using only what he could find at place like a dry cleaners. More on Diego next time! https://vimeo.com/29273575 So, for EPISODE SEVEN of Creative Audio Production
….Here is an interview with Jake Harrison a Denver artist who is experimenting in this emerging new art form of Found Sound. Follow Jake and his music at: www.jakeharrisonmusic.com www.facebook.com/atthismusic
Want to try using found sounds, but feeling a little to comfy in your chair? http://www.FreeSound.org is a wonderful online community where you can download recorded sounds for music, video production, etc. I’ve downloaded a few in the past, and I try to give back to the community by posting odds and ends.
http://www.freesound.org/people/petebuchwald/
I encourage you to give Found Sounds a try! Go out, record weird and commonplace things, import them into your audio production environment and tweak away! Let us know what you come up with!
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